Corey Seager: Dodgers’ mild-mannered star has no interest in spotlight

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Dodgers manager Dave Roberts calls shortstop Corey Seager, pictured, the best hitter on a team that includes an NL batting title contender (Justin Turner) and a record-setting home run hitter (Cody Bellinger). (AP Photo/Kelvin Kuo)

Los Angeles Dodgers’ Corey Seager (5) smiles after hitting a two run home run in the first inning of a Major League baseball game against the New York Mets at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday, June 20, 2017 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager throws out San Francisco Giants’ Hunter Pence (not pictured) in the third inning of a Major League baseball game at Dodger Stadium on Friday, July 28, 2017 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager #5 started off the first inning with a single home run. The Dodgers played the Atlanta Braves at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, CA 7/22/2017 Photo by John McCoy/Los Angeles Daily News (SCNG)

Los Angeles Dodgers’ Corey Seager gets ready to bat against the Atlanta Braves during the first inning of a baseball game, Saturday, July 22, 2017, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ryan Kang)

Giants Joe Panik, #12, is out at second on a double play as Dodgers Corey Seager, #5, gets the ball and completes the play to first during 4th inning action at Dodger Stadium Sunday, July 30, 2017. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager makes the catch on a drive by San Francisco Giants’ Joe Panik (not pictured) in the first inning of a Major League baseball game at Dodger Stadium on Friday, July 28, 2017 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

Los Angeles Dodgers’ Corey Seager looks on during batting practice prior to a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves in Los Angeles, Friday, July 21, 2017. (AP Photo/Kelvin Kuo)

Los Angeles Dodgers’ Corey Seager in action during the ninth inning of a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins in Los Angeles, Wednesday, July 26, 2017. (AP Photo/Kelvin Kuo)

Los Angeles Dodgers’ Corey Seager in action during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins in Los Angeles, Wednesday, July 26, 2017. (AP Photo/Kelvin Kuo)

Los Angeles Dodgers’ Corey Seager follows through on a three-run home run in front of San Diego Padres catcher Luis Torrens during the seventh inning of a baseball game in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017. (AP Photo/Alex Gallardo)

Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager makes the throw to first, but not in time to get San Diego Padres’ Wil Myers during the third inning of a baseball game in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017. (AP Photo/Alex Gallardo)

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts calls shortstop Corey Seager, pictured, the best hitter on a team that includes an NL batting title contender (Justin Turner) and a record-setting home run hitter (Cody Bellinger). (AP Photo/Kelvin Kuo)

LOS ANGELES — Shawn Wooten first started working with Corey Seager three years ago as the hitting coach in Double-A.

Since then, Seager has won the National League Rookie of the Year award, made two All-Star teams and established himself (at age 23) as the best shortstop in the National League while playing for one of the premier franchises in the sport.

None of that has changed him, Wooten said. Seager is the same baseball “gym rat” he knew in Chattanooga, Tenn., uninterested in the trappings of stardom.

“Absolutely. That’s just his personality,” Wooten said. “I don’t want to say he doesn’t like the limelight. But he just wants to play. … I don’t think he wants to be on the cover of magazines. If he is, he’s okay with it. But he’s not going to be pounding on people’s door, saying, ‘Look what I’m doing.’ He’s just mellow and loves the game of baseball.”

Ross Stripling has known Seager even longer. Both were drafted by the Dodgers in 2012 – Seager in the first round, Stripling in the fifth – and made their professional debuts with rookie-level Ogden (Utah) that summer. The two have been roommates in Los Angeles the past two years.

“Extremely mellow. Very set to a routine that works for him,” Stripling said. “We leave at the same time every day, same route every day, watches his TV shows. Pretty mellow.

“I feel if you were to start getting him out of his routine you’d get him a little agitated. But as long as you leave him alone, let him do what leads to .295 and 20 home runs that seems to work for everyone.”

Seager got out of that routine in August. Inflammation in his right elbow prompted the Dodgers to essentially shut him down for most of two weeks. In an 11-game span, Seager made five pinch-hit appearances.

As much as Seager loves baseball, he does not like watching it.

“I don’t like days off,” Seager said. “Taking that much time off? I’m a huge feel guy. That’s why I don’t like days off. I need the feel.”

Seager lost that feeling over the final five weeks of the season. From the time he was shut down with his sore elbow until the end of the season, he hit just .205 with a .629 OPS – numbers that were trending even lower until he recovered with seven hits (including two home runs and a double) in his final 20 at-bats.

For a player who hit .337 in his first month in the big leagues and has struggled only in short stretches since, it was the most difficult time in his career.

“Absolutely,” he agreed. “Getting over the mental hurdles of having to take the days, feeling pretty good before it. Obviously taking that much time off, it’s hard to just come back like that (snaps his fingers).

“Grinding through that, grinding through trying to get my body back, trying to get back in the flow, trying to find my swing, trying to find myself – it’s been hard, for sure.

“I was nervous about taking that kind of time. It’s hard. I don’t like single days off so taking 14 or whatever it was was extremely difficult. The team was struggling. You just feel helpless. You can’t help. You get a pinch-hit every fourth day. It’s an impact but it’s not an impact. It was a real mental grind for me.”

Seager insists that he “never had a problem with it (his elbow) swinging” his struggles came from “taking so much time off.”

The search-and-recovery mission to find that missing “feeling” at the plate led Seager back in time. He adjusted his stance, turning his front foot severely inward, at the suggestion of Wooten. Seager says it was a return to his former stance which he had drifted away from. The results have been better since then.

“I used to do it a lot more, but I haven’t needed that feeling of tension,” Seager said. “Putting tension on the front side helps in how you travel forward. I was collapsing a little bit on my back side and I couldn’t maintain a (clean swing) path.”

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts recognizes the past month as the most he has seen his young shortstop struggle in two years.

“It is. I think we look at Corey as a player and expect him to get a couple hits every night,” Roberts said. “But it’s tough. That 12-day layoff where we didn’t DL him but he had that elbow thing where we were pinch-hitting him – that consistency in the batter’s box, playing every day, he didn’t have that.”

It’s no coincidence that Seager’s absence coincided with the Dodgers’ season taking a distinct downturn in late August. Roberts calls him “our best hitter” on a team that has a near-batting champ (Justin Turner finished third in the NL this year) and a record-setting home run hitter (Cody Bellinger).

Can the Dodgers win in the postseason if their best hitter is not at his best?

“Do I see it? Can it happen? Absolutely. Is it ideal? Absolutely not,” Roberts said. “I think you can say that about any team’s best player. Can it happen? Yeah, certainly. But I expect, we expect Corey to get out of this funk he’s been in and be as productive as he’s always been.”

Bill Plunkett has covered everything from rodeo to Super Bowls to boxing (yeah, I was there the night Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield's ear off) during a career that started far too long ago to mention and eventually brought him to the OC some time last century (1999 actually). He has been covering Major League Baseball for the Orange County Register since 2003, spending time on both the Angels and Dodgers beats.

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